After
UN Evicted Press, Jeff Sachs
Two-Step, Burundi Tweets,
O'Brien in the Lobby
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Part of Series,
Video
UNITED NATIONS,
February 21 – Even evicted and
restricted by the UN I tried
to keep covering in, for
example on Burundi. Before
being thrown out of my office
I had one morning seen a group
of four protesters with a
Burundian flag and I ran down
there. I broadcast the protest
on Periscope, interviewed the
organizer, up from Louisiana
as it happened, Manisha Lievin,
and put the whole thing
online.
Burundi's Ambassador
Albert Shingiro who blocked me
on Twitter mocked my video of
the protest, saying if only
four people are upset, it's
not much of a moment. Hey,
it's a small country, with
even fewer in New York. I
blasted away at Shingiro, and
Burundians from Toronto and
Kigali replied and sent me
photos of soldiers who'd
killed protesters and were now
being deployed on Ladsous'
peacekeeping missions.
I was covering a
meeting on Burundi of the
Peacebuildling Configuration,
in person because I no longer
had access through my office
ot the UN's in-house EZTV.
There was no outlet and I was
live tweeting, Switzerland's
Ambassador and the omnipresent
Shingiro thanking everyone,
thug-like -- when my phone
rang.
It was Jeffrey Sachs,
all around UN guy, to whom
like nearly all other Under
Secretaries General I'd send
an email about my plight. I
went out into the Vienna Cafe,
still loud. Sachs said he was
traveling but wanted more
information, he would try to
talk with Cristina Gallach.
It was ironic, because
I'd attacked
Sachs in the past,
including for claiming he was
a dollar a year UN official
when UNDP paid for his travel,
I'd gotten a copy of the
check. “Be careful,” he'd told
me at the time and I'd
reported that too. And here he
was trying to intervene for
me. I was impressed. “This is
not good for the UN,” he said.
It struck me this could be the
silver bullet, one of the UN's
name-brand outside supporters.
Wake up and smell Sachs'
Rwandan shade-grown coffee,
Gallach, I thought. I sent him
more information then went to
the noon briefing.
I asked my usual mix of
questions - two Africa, one
Sri Lanka, two corruption -
then went and sat on one of
the two benches in the lobby
to type them up. I tweeted
people I saw passing by, and
got up to chase UN Relief
Chief Stephen O'Brien to the
elevators.
I asked him, “The Saudi
ambassador said you don't want
a humanitarian resolution in
the Security Council, like the
one you asked for on Syria -
is it true?”
O'Brien stopped and
said “I hadn't heard that.”
“It was on camera,” I
told him. “It's on the
webcast.”
“I'll have to see it
then,” he said. The elevator
doors closed behind him. I
went back to my bench - my
laptop was still there - and
tweeted out his answer. I
could still report this way, I
decided. It was different but
I could do it.
Still when it hit
six o'clock I went to the
front of the lobby, facing the
traffic circle they had
marched me around. There was a
black sedan parked there with
UN Security. I would wait for
Ban Ki-moon to come off the
elevator and ask him why this
was happening. I paced up and
down.
Guards came and stared
at me, but none came over to
talk. Though almost no one did
this any more, this was or had
been an accepted stakeout. A
British journalist named James
Bone had used it, to lie in
wait for UNHCR's Ruud Lubbers
about his sexual harassment --
alleged, alleged -- of Cynthia
Byrzac. Bone had asked Lubbers
to touch him as he had Ms
Byrzak and Lubbers insanely
complied, patting Bone on the
ass. “I would do it to Mrs
Annan,” Lubbers said, captured
on UN TV. Kofi Annan, watching
upstairs, fired him. Those
were the days.
I waited
and waited but there was no
Ban Ki-moon. Finally the
official who emerged was Jan
Eliasson, Ban's Sweden
deputy. “Yes, Matthew?”
he asked me, as if he didn't
know what had been done to me.
“They threw me out,” I
said, as Security stepped
between us. “Call Jeff Sachs!”
I said, hearing my own self as
desperate.
“Jeff Sachs, eh?”
Eliasson said, by now at the
doors to his car. He was
gone. I retreated to the
far end of the lobby and
started to write it up. My
laptop was running out of
power so I plugged it and my
smart phone in. This could be
the break.
Just then I saw
two UN Security guards
approaching me. The older one,
in a white shirt, said “You
know you shouldn't be here.”
“I don't know that,” I
told him. “The rules say if
I'm in the building by 7 pm I
can stay working.”
The white guard shook
his head. “You're going to
have to leave.”
“But my stuff is up in
the bullpen,” I told him.
“You have to leave
now,” he said.
“What's your name?” I
asked. I fumbled to turn on my
phone filming,
to try to Periscope the
encounter.
“Clyde,” he said. “And
we're going to move you out.”
They escorted me
through the lobby, like on
February 19. But this time I
had my phone in my hand. “You
know why they're having you do
this, right?” I asked him. “I
wrote about Ban Ki-moon's
connection to the corruption
scandal.”
He didn't answer. I said
a few swear words, and the
next thing I knew I was out on
First Avenue. Again.
This time I went
straight to the park and its
metal statue. I knew where to
plug in my equipment; Adrian
had shown me. I uploaded video
and sound, I wrote an article.
The UN is hitting new lows, I
tweeted. A few people
responded. Like a little
Burundi.
***
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